BEIJING: China's main state-owned aircraft maker says it will recruit its first executives from abroad  an unprecedented step for the secretive world of Chinese military contractors  amid efforts to create a commercial aerospace supplier to compete with Boeing Co. and Europe's Airbus.

Aviation Industry Corp. of China, which makes Beijing's fighter jets, is pushing ahead with aggressive business plans despite global financial turmoil. It got a 176 billion yuan ($26 billion) credit line from state banks in January to develop a 150-seat jetliner. It test-flew a smaller commercial jet in November and is building China's first helicopter factory.

AVIC is looking for vice presidents for 13 subsidiaries who have experience at multinational companies in marketing, research and production, said Ding Zhiyong, a company spokesman. He said most posts were in civilian areas such as helicopters and cargo planes but some were in defense, though he declined to give other details. The company says it plans to formally launch the recruiting efforts Thursday.

Efforts by Chinese companies to recruit executives with foreign experience usually are aimed at ethnic Chinese abroad. However, Ding said, "This recruitment is open to all around the globe."

Foreign skills should help AVIC, now run largely by soldiers and government officials, meet goals that include developing a jetliner by 2020, said Jon Grevatt, the Asia-Pacific defense industry correspondent for Jane's Information Group. He said non-Chinese citizens probably will be kept away from military technology.

"China has very ambitious plans for its commercial and military modernization and it was quite clear that the old AVIC wasn't working properly," Grevatt said. "Having real Western-style project managers in place who are used to driving through such enormous challenges as a large-scale jet airliner is what they are after."

AVIC adds to a growing list of Chinese companies that are hiring executives with experience abroad to fill gaps in skills and experience as they expand into global markets.

Personal computer maker Lenovo Group appointed an American CEO, William J. Amelio, who launched its effort to develop a global brand following its 2005 acquisition of IBM Corp.'s PC unit. Amelio stepped down in December after a three-year stint.

SAIC Motor Corp. hired Phil Murtaugh, formerly in charge of General Motors' China operations, as a vice president in 2006. He left the following year to become chief executive of Chrysler LLC's Asia operations.

The strongest demand is for managers with experience at marketing and research, where Chinese companies lag, said Thomas Zhou, a partner in Shanghai for DaCare Consulting, which finds foreign executives for companies in China.

"This is an easy and quick way they can bring in not only new ideas and innovation but also methodology  how to invent the stuff," Zhou said.

Zhou said DaCare places about 300 foreign executives a year in China at levels up to vice president. Most go to foreign-owned operations, but Zhou said the number placed with Chinese employers is expected to rise to 15 to 20 this year, up from single digits in 2008.

"The trend is picking up," he said.

The communist government created AVIC in November by merging its two biggest aerospace companies. It immediately announced initiatives in a sweeping array of areas ranging from jetliners to helicopters.

The company has the advantage that its home Chinese aviation market is one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing. Boeing has forecast Chinese carriers will need 3,400 new aircraft over the next two decades.

An AVIC subsidiary says it plans to develop a 150-seat jetliner to compete with Boeing and Airbus.

In mid-range jets, another subsidiary wants to compete with Canada's Bombadier Inc. and Brazil's Embraer SA. It test-flew China's first fully homegrown commercial jet  the 90-seat ARJ-21  on Nov. 28 in Shanghai. The company says China is expected to need 900 such jets over the next two decades, and says it hopes to supply 60 percent of them.

A third subsidiary is building a $1.2 billion helicopter factory in the eastern city of Tianjin and says it should produce its first helicopter this year.

"The speed at which AVIC is trying to, first, come together, but also develop and restructure is quite incredible," Grevatt said.

AVIC might try to recruit managers away from Boeing and Airbus, he said.

"There must be people at Airbus and Boeing that they have in mind when they say 13 vice presidents," he said. "They know there might be people in those two companies who might be willing to step over" to AVIC.

If it hires foreign citizens, the company will face a challenge in making the most of their abilities while keeping them away from military secrets, Grevatt said.

"There would be a lot of dual-use technology," he said. "So it will be very difficult to separate all their secret stuff out."

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian news agencies are quoting a senior prosecutor as saying that his office has exposed an attempt by military officers to smuggle $18 million worth of stolen Russian weapons to China.

The agencies quoted Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky as saying Wednesday that some officers and businessmen shipped the weapons to the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan for subsequent smuggling to neighboring China.

Fridinsky said the stolen weapons included 30 anti-submarine missiles and about 200 bombs.

China has been a top customer for Russian weapons since the 1990s. But Russian authorities have also nabbed some military officers and civilians who they accuse of smuggling weapons and sensitive technologies into China.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGddhvGGLcqicC3ELMt5flj1195wD96IJ9I80

Monday, February 23, 2009

LANG SON, Vietnam, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The final demarcation of the border between China and Vietnam will help ensure peace and stability between the two countries, officials said Monday.

In ceremonies at the Huu Nghi (Friendship) border gate near Lang Son Monday, Deputy Vietnamese Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem said the official delineation of the border was an event of great historical significance in the countries' bilateral relations, the Voice of Vietnam reported.

"This is a vivid manifestation of the comprehensive and strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries," Khiem said. "It also delivers a message to the world that the relationship between Vietnam and China is developing well."

China's foreign ministry issued a statement saying the completion of the demarcation would be conducive to peace and stability, promote trade and exchanges and foster the strategic partnership between the two countries, Xinhua, the state-owned Chinese news agency, reported.

China and Vietnam began negotiations on officially demarcating the 800-mile border in the 1990s and started work on it in 2001, Xinhua said.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

In the passenger transport during the Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, 2009, "the nuclear radiation monitoring wireless sensor network system" developed by a chemical defense technical group of the Nanjing Military Area Command implemented real-time automatic nuclear radiation monitoring in large public places of the city of Nanjing, offering reliable technical support to the safety of people's life.

It's said that the system which applied multiple technologies including wireless network, radiation measurement, satellite positioning and software design, can form network automatically and automatically monitor and alarm with real time. It is in the lead among international fellow technologies.

The system can take 65，000 radiation sensor nodes and the operational area of it has expanded to 200 k㎡. With automatic real-time monitoring and remote monitoring control, it can precisely position and accurately measure the radiation source without entering the radiation field.

The system has a multiple of functions. It can meet the needs of monitoring manifold objects and various point positions. It is applicable to the monitoring of the level of radioactive contamination of key objects in wartime. It can also be used to carry out such missions as the emergent rescue of nuclear accidents, security and guard for key events, nuclear terrorist attack prevention and the handling of emergent radiation incidents in peace time.

Friday, February 13, 2009

BEIJING (AP) — A military exercise in southern China set off mass panic among local residents who thought an earthquake had struck with about 100,000 people fleeing their homes, state media reported Saturday.

Frightened residents slept outdoors following the live-fire exercise Wednesday by an air force brigade near the city of Hengyang in Hunan province, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Pressure waves from exploding bombs shook homes and rattled windows, and rumors of an earthquake spread quickly by phone and over the Internet, the report said.

Earthquake fears spread throughout China after last May's massive temblor in Sichuan province that left about 90,000 people dead or missing. The 7.9 magnitude quake rocked buildings in Beijing and other cities thousands of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter.

"Apparently, the residents are more vigilant after the strong earthquake hitting Sichuan province last May," Xinhua quoted local official Liu Xinghua as saying.

Notices were issued by local governments on Thursday reassuring people that no earthquake had occurred, Xinhua said. Liu said he worked until 3 a.m. on Friday trying to persuade villagers to go back home, but "many of them still feel unsafe."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

What the hack is this "naval regiment"? Reading from the article, it does not seems to be a new unit of the PLA Marine and relatively new, do you think it is to be stationed on broad of the newly commissioned LHD?

Naval regiment carries out force-on-force exercise with Army unit

english.chinamil.com.cn 2009-02-10

A regiment of the South China Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy maneuvered to complicated hinterland areas to carry out force-on-force exercise with an Army unit as soon as the Spring Festival was over. The Army unit acts as the blue army and the naval regiment acts as the red army.

As the naval regiment was formed not long ago, it lacks experience of actual-troop confrontation in previous trainings, especially the experience of tactic confrontation exercise with simulated strong "enemy" in complicated electromagnetic environment. Since last year, to tackle such factors not good for actual-troop exercise including narrow area, familiar opponents and single-modal electromagnetic environment, the regiment has established collaborative mechanism for tactic training with brother troops of various arms and carried out tactical confrontation exercise frequently. It also organized exchanges on test and argumentation of new equipment and new fighting methods to realize resources sharing.

In the exercise, after receiving an order of cutting off all radio communication links with the outside of the blue army in 24 hours, the command station of the naval regiment immediately deployed 3 standby groups to rush to the position.

In less than 3 hours, all combat groups have come to the designated positions. The scout and searching result showed that the "enemy" was making contact with 10 external targets at the same time. The command station then issued an order of interference, several interference vehicles then launched strong "electro-magnetic wave" and the communication network of the "enemy" paralyzed in a sudden. Shortly, the "enemy" attempted to change frequency and communication mode, but the red army then made a decisive and orderly interference. After more than 10 hours' of fierce combat, the communication system of the "enemy" was destroyed compeletely.

Monday, February 09, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of U.S. forces in the Pacific said on Thursday China had made no overtures to revive dialogue with the U.S. military since President Barack Obama took office but he was optimistic ties would improve.

China broke off high-level contacts with the U.S. military in October after the United States agreed a $6.5 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

"I have seen no change since the new administration came in," Navy Admiral Timothy Keating, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, told Reuters in an interview at the Pentagon.

"We do have ongoing dialogue with ... certain folks in China," Keating said. "We would much prefer it to be a more formal, a more regular and a more frequent dialogue than it is right now and that's what we're working to achieve."

The United States has repeatedly called on China to explain the intentions behind the modernization of its armed forces and large increases in its military budget in recent years.

Beijing has stated it is committed to a "peaceful rise" alongside its rapid economic development and rejected U.S. accusations it has not been transparent.

Keating said the United States wanted to encourage "responsible behavior" by China.

He said he was heartened by Chinese participation in international anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia. Chinese vessels were in contact with U.S. Navy ships there, he said. "There is ongoing dialogue at the tactical level so we are encouraged by that," Keating said.

"We think that there are ways for China to integrate into naval coalitions, to help with humanitarian disaster relief, so as to reflect a willingness to cooperate and collaborate," he said. "I'm optimistic about it."

U.S. and Chinese military officials exchanged visits throughout 2007 and 2008 until the Taiwan arms deal was announced, said Keating, who visited China twice as Pacific Command chief.

He said he hoped such contacts could resume as part of a return to more dialogue with the Chinese military.

Moscow , 4 February: Russia has signed its first contract in 2009 with China on the supply of over 100 aircraft engines for J-10 planes, Rosoboronexport Director-General Anatoliy Isaykin has said.

"The world's leading analysts think that the People's Republic of China will continue to buy military transport aircraft, including strategic refuelling tankers, long-range radar surveillance and carrier-borne aircraft, as well as aircraft engines. By the way, our first contract in 2009 was signed with China on the supply of over 100 aircraft engines for J-10 planes," Isaykin said in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta published today.

"That country is also showing keen interest in air defence equipment. Our partners pay great attention to upgrading their navy through imports as well," he added.

At the same time, the Rosoboronexport head noted that the expanding geography and increasing volumes of Russian military exports "logically lead to the reduction of China 's share in our arms exports."

"It is quite likely that it may drop from 40 per cent to 10 per cent. We are not concerned about that because the volume of sales remains high," Isaykin predicted.